posted 03-25-2014 09:49 PM
Your help, please! I see that spaceflori is selling a numbered photo presentation sheet with a snippet of kapton foil from Apollo 11. He says the foil came from Havekotte and O.W. Nasse.

Meanwhile, "The Space Store" is selling exactly the same sheet and foil, but attributes the kapton to D. Williamson.

So: (1) who actually manufactured these presentation sheets?; (2) from where, in fact, did the kapton come?; and (3) where can a collector go to get 100% genuine kapton without these kinds of mix-ups? Thanks!

spacefloriMember

Posts: 1422From: GermanyRegistered: May 2000

posted 03-26-2014 12:43 AM
Fairly easy: The Apollo 11 Kapton material comes partly from Ken Havekotte (OW Nasse originally) and Dick Williamson — I have used both sources to make the presentations. They were done by me.

mode1charlieMember

Posts: 726From: Honolulu, HI, USARegistered: Sep 2010

posted 03-26-2014 03:54 AM
And JimInMaine, in case this was a concern, I think you will find that Spaceflori has an impeccable reputation in the space collecting community.

Ken HavekotteMember

Posts: 2082From: Merritt Island, Florida, BrevardRegistered: Mar 2001

posted 03-27-2014 04:51 PM
Not just Dick Williamson, but others that originally provided Kapton material from flown Apollo command module spacecrafts would be Terry Slezak (one of the first to do so), Robert Miner, and O. W. Nasse.

All of these former Apollo program veterans, mostly associated with North American Rockwell's Space Division at the time, had a direct "hands on" participation with the returning Apollo command modules during their safety and post-landing operations.

All except Nasse provided their own produced Kapton certificates, even long before Spaceflori was able to obtain Kapton from Williamson and myself.

My firm's produced Kapton certificates for Apollo 11 only came from Nasse himself (and his family), I think, nearly 15 or so years ago.

Throughout the 1990s, however, I did meet with Bob Miner, but never acquired Kapton insulation from CM-107/Columbia from him at the time.

rgarnerMember

Posts: 506From: Liverpool, United KingdomRegistered: Mar 2012

posted 03-27-2014 05:00 PM
The Space Collective use Kapton Foil from Ken Havekotte. But there are a few decent sources of material.